Only those who have been so situated can picture the
solemnity of such a scene.
At his urgent request, I promised I would accompany him to the spot -
sanctified by his sorrow and watered by his tears - where he had laid
his dear one. Early the following morning a native servant saddled
two horses, and we rode in silence towards the hallowed ground. In
about thirty minutes we came in view of the quiet tomb. Encircling
the grave he had built a high stone wall. When he silently opened the
gate, I saw that, although all the pasture outside was dry and
withered, that on the mound was beautifully green and fresh. Had he
brought water from his house, for there was none nearer, or was it
watered by his tears? His greatest longing was, as he had explained
to me the previous night, that she should have a Christian burial,
and if I would read some chapter over her grave he would feel more
content, he said. As with bared heads we reverently knelt on the
mound, I now complied with his request. Then, for the first time in
the world's history, the trees that surrounded us listened to the
Christian doctrine of a resurrection from the dead. "It is sown in
corruption, it is raised in incorruption." And the leaves whispered
to the mountains beyond, which gave back the words: "It is sown a
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
Never have I seen a man so broken with grief as was that lone
Scotsman. There were no paid mourners or idle sightseers. There was
no show of sorrow while the heart remained indifferent and untouched.
It was the spectacle of a lone man who had buried his all and was
left -
"To linger when the sun of life,
The beam that gilds its path, is gone -
To feel the aching bosom's strife,
When Hope is dead and Love lives on."
As we knelt there, I spoke to the man about salvation from sin, and
unfolded God's plan of inheritance and reunions in the future life.
The Lord gave His blessing, and I left him next day rejoicing in the
Christ who said: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that
believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
As the world moves forward, and man pushes his way into the waste
places of the earth, that lonely grave will be forgotten. Populous
cities will be built; but the doctrine the mountains then heard shall
live when the gloomy youth of Uruguay is forgotten.
THE WORD OF GOD CONTRASTED WITH THAT OF THE R. C. CHURCH.
"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve." - The Christ.
